Red
by Nightengale13
Summary: What color does each of us search for throughout our lives? Contains spoilers-of-connotation for Act 13. Please review kindly, and keep in mind this is innovative and thus inherently designed to ruffle your feathers.


12-01-02  
Red  
  
If one was to choose a color to represent R. Dorothy Wayneright, one's inclinations would select black. But Roger Smith chose black as -his- color, leaving for the nightengale, crimson. She would've chosen blue, but dolls do not get to dress themselves, nor know how, so red it was. Unfortunately, she found little opportunity to be her red self.  
  
Once, she had worn crimson; the adventure had centered around pain. A strange sort of pain had enfolded her bosom as Soldano fell; she did not rationalize the stabbing impulse which charged her forward and bushed her hair out like a mad tomcat's. After, inside the cockpit of Dorothy II, she hung unconscious but still felt the pain as her body drained to power the machine. By the close of that day, she wasn't sure whether her body or heart hurt more.  
  
And once, she had made crimson, though she didn't like recalling that part of the experience. Her eyes were ebony, as were her clothes, but an observer would've sworn they held a hue of carmine as deep as the locks which hung back form her upturned face. Her memory of the events was faint, save one instant--that in which he gasped her name. Her hands were candy-coating his skin, inside the trim black suit, with his own red blood, and the way she stood, the way she held herself, was in the manner of the nightengale, not the housemaid. That was a red day indeed for her.  
  
She liked being red. It was painful, but being the nightengale let her be things the housemaid was not capable of. As he pulled her out of Dorothy II's machinations, ripping the web of wires off her body, he had screamed, "Just be who you are!" but which "her" was the true one? She was herself, the nightengale, and could sing, please Soldano, and please Roger (because she -had- noticed him in the shadowy corner of the club); the housemaid was herself and only earned his laughter. The nightengale said what the housemaid could only hint at; the housemaid understood more of what was hinted at than the nightengale. More important than all that, the nightengale could touch him. The nightengale held him, embraced him, was embraced by him. The nightengale was begging the housemaid for another chance to come out.  
  
Meanwhile, the housemaid stood in the dank tunnel, facing squarely the upended coffin. Her floodlight headband was not in use, and her ersatz eyes had to strain as hard as real ones would've to see her surroundings. She grasped the edge of the lid with thin fingers and flexed their tips, digging little dents into the surface to provide leverage.  
  
She had woken, the day she dressed in red, to see his face over her. He held her in his lap even though her weight was a burden on him. He said protecting her was just part of the job description, but he seemed more relieved that she was well than an unpaid bodyguard would have been. His voice was gentle.  
  
He had woken in the subway to see her hovering over him. His soft voice had called her his mother; she had impassively asked the significance of that name. She held his head in her lap because he had, and not out of any apparent concern for him which she would admit to. He had backed away quickly.  
  
The housemaid opened the coffin, feeling the metal's imperfections under her fingers. Inside was stiff foam padding, molded to accommodate the shape of a girl. In the space where feet should have rested, a bundle of crimson cloth lay tangled about a red diadem. Dorothy picked up the cape and settled it around her shoulders, then opened her floodlight headband and picked up the diadem.  
  
She had been dressed in black, yes, and the diadem she wore was gold, to suit its maker, but she was the nightengale that day. She remembered his voice, how weak it was, how the shattering of bones could be heard in it. She remembered that she remembered her question after she woke up, that he had left her capable of doing that or worse to him again, just to hear her question. She remembered that in the one instant in which they both truly looked into each other's eyes, he had learned how to paint them, and finished the portrait without his model. She remembered what Beck had made her say, and remembered her only free thought formed in the moment that she broke his control and shut down: "Roger, I'm sorry." She remembered how hard it had been to speak her last question. She remembered how haltingly he had responded, and how he had not simply responded with "Preposterous," or the like.  
  
She inspected the diadem closely by the light of her headband. She was intelligent, and remembered its making. She knew that forty-odd years in a dank, moldy vault may well have caused some problems in its operation. She knew that the nightengale was a mentally delicate facet of her being.   
  
She knew she wanted more crimson in her life.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Some part of her told her this was wrong, that this was not the way to make crimson. Unfortunately, it was too small a part, and its voice was swallowed up in the blackness of itself. There had been a little crimson--a controlled pigment across the dancer's lips, in her clothes. Now there was lots--and it was spreading, flowing out of her. It wasn't controlled. It wasn't the right kind of crimson. The right crimson would let her see the insides of him. It would let her see that inner red cockpit in the black megadeus, the inner red heart inside the black negotiator. The right crimson had something to do with a nightengale...  
  
But she couldn't remember anymore.  
  
She picked up the dancer's lipstick and doodled for a bit on the mirror. The red part of her didn't recognize the words she scrawled, but the little buried black part did. She hoped that either the words were true or that their owner would come and stop this.  
  
She left the dressing-room, absent-mindedly carrying the lipstick with her, looking for more scarlet.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Again.  
  
And again.  
  
With every shot, the black part of her woke up a little more. This wasn't the way to get the red she was looking for. She still wasn't strong enough to make the red part become conscious of these thoughts, but they were there nonetheless, under the surface. Every time, after the wrong scarlet was pooling at her feet, she wrote the same words somewhere nearby with the lipstick. The red part didn't know from where the compulsion came to exactly duplicate the first doodle, but the black part of her knew, and hoped he'd catch on.  
  
The red part was getting an idea of what was the right kind of scarlet. It would let her touch him, see the inner red heart of the black negotiator. It had a lot to do with a nightengale.  
  
  
***  
  
  
No!  
  
No! This was never supposed to happen! He's not supposed to bleed...  
  
The black part, Dorothy, was fully awake now, and inside her heart screamed out at the mistake she'd made.  
  
The red part had named herself R.D, and she told Roger it stood for Red Destiny. That was all wrong, though. Red Dorothy was her real name. She had all the crimson and more than she could ever want in her life now, and she had already seen a little of his red blood. Wasn't that what she had wanted?  
  
Dorothy wept within herself. No, no, that wasn't it at all. She had wanted to be closer to him, to touch him, to see his warm, true self, behind the hard black suit. And now it was all wrong, all wrong. The R.D had control of her, and she didn't know how she could ever get back. This wasn't how it was supposed to have been--the diadem was supposed to have contained the nightengale! And now she had ruined herself.  
  
"Who controls you, Roger Smith?"  
  
Don't you understand? You're in control of yourself, but I've lost control to this diadem, because I tried to be the nightengale for always, because I just wanted to be closer to you...  
  
R.D advanced on Roger, the gun leveled at his head.  
  
"Dorothy?"  
  
No, Roger, it's not me...please...don't think it's me...this isn't really me...  
  
"Goodbye, Roger Smith!...Negotiator!!"  
  
Roger, I'm sorry...  
  
  
***  
  
  
Miracles do happen. Somehow, in this city of blood and ash, they do.  
  
She looked down on him from the Big O's cockpit and felt such a swelling in her throat that when she responded to his question, for the first time in all her operation, she had to fight to keep her voice level. In that moment, she resolved, even if her current remove from his side was the closest she would ever be to him, she would be content. If her destiny was to be the housemaid eternally, then she would accept it.  
  
Blood still slipped from his arm as he tersely listened to Norman's description of the newest threat. He was weary, wounded, and he still had to fight. She could imagine how the torn muscle fibers would scream if--when--he piloted Big O out to sea. And it was her fault, all because she wanted to be crimson.  
  
She remained in the cockpit when he climbed in, and as he positioned himself, stretching out his wounded arm to grasp the throttle, hopped inside the circle of his arm. She carefully laid her hand over his, and squeezed gently.  
  
She was the housemaid, not the nightengale, but she could feel his heartbeat against her ribs. She could feel the faltering of his pulse under her hand as his blood strayed from its course to stain the tourniquet. She could feel his body vibrate as he took a deep breath and boomed out, "It's Showtime!" She abandoned her resolution of just minutes before, and made a new one in its stead: She would do everything the nightengale could do, as the housemaid. She could and would remain near him, in his arms as she was now, but she would do it while remaining black. She resolved that red brought pleasure and pain; she would make sure black brought only pleasure.  
  
If one was to choose a color to represent R. Dorothy Wayneright, one--despite one's better judgment--ought to choose black.  
  
-fin-  
  
  
  
  
AN:   
If anyone out there has previously attacked Act 13 from this angle, I'll be shocked. I didn't write this--R.D took over my body and picked up a pen. Believe you me, she's -scary-.  
My apologies to anyone whose minds I have messed up; my thanks to anyone who took this seriously enough -to- get messed up.  
Please, please review--tell me what I did wrong, what (if anything) I did right, how badly I suck, etcetera.  
Thank you for at least taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it.  
  
One last thing: I know nightingale is the correct spelling, I just like the way it looks with an 'e' better.  
  
  
-nightengale  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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